Maureen Green: Pardon the appearance of Carrier Circle

John Berry/The Post-StandardDrivers arriving at Carrier Circle face a confusing roadway and an unappealing gateway to Syracuse.

Of all the approaches to Syracuse by car, the most impressive is Interstate-81 from the south.

The road rims fat fingers of glacial deposit, winding far to the left, then far to the right and back to the left again like a snake slithering through grass until suddenly you see it: the cozy cluster of Syracuse buildings snug in the distance between the hills.

After all that farmland, here is a population center. The pillow-topped Carrier Dome, the castle spires of Crouse College on the Syracuse University hill, brick buildings that rise 10 stories or more downtown. The depth of field scrunches it all together to suggest Syracuse is tightly packed, cohesive and electrically charged.

Sure, it’s technically in Dewitt, and downtown is miles away, but hundreds of thousands of visitors to Syracuse exit the New York State Thruway at Exit 35 each year and get deposited into a centrifugal force of blight.

Dedicated lanes of traffic and gigantic overhead signs overwhelm the view and do little to help us navigate the famously confusing rotary. You sometimes have to control-alt-delete your ride and make a couple of passes to figure out where to best get out. With all those cars driving around in circles, why is the whole thing so awful to look at?

From the toll gate, the weedy center island with the neglected stand of trees is just the opening act. Drive around the rotary to the two southern quadrants and there’s nothing but businesses in retreat.

Carrier Corporation? Downsized.

Howard Johnson’s? Derelict.

Our civic hello is less “Welcome” and more “Pardon our appearance. Indefinitely.”

To be sure, there is success happening. Ten modern hotels and some of our area’s most enduring and popular restaurants — Joey’s, Justin’s, and Grimaldi’s — are Carrier Circle institutions.

But most of them exist in a corn maze of access roads. The rotary itself is screaming for an upgrade.

Let’s take down the higgledy-piggledy trees in the center and build a berm with “Syracuse” spelled out in evergreen script. After some initial intensive care, yews only require annual pruning to keep the letters tidy and legible. Bursts of marigolds can show Orange pride during the growing season.

We can’t plant new companies as quickly as we’d like, but we can plant plants. Let’s use some to create a verdant new landmark in a neglected spot that could really use some help.